Isabel Hardman

Remember grooming gangs? Last week’s big story has amazingly already been superseded by other political rows, but they came up again at Home Office questions in the Commons this afternoon. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp used his topical question to ask Yvette Cooper whether she now agreed with Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and Liverpool Walton MP Dan Carden that there should be a ‘proper national public inquiry’. Cooper did not agree in her response, but equally she didn’t rule out an inquiry, showing how far the government has had to shift from its initial adamant position that those calling for an inquiry were jumping on a ‘far-right bandwagon’.

Unsurprisingly, the Conservative attempt to amend/kill off the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill failed tonight, with MPs voting 364 to 111 against the reasoned amendment tabled by Kemi Badenoch. The amendment declined to give the bill its second reading on the basis of a lengthy list of issues, with the call for a national inquiry on grooming gangs at the very end.  The question of the inquiry did not fully dominate the debate, though there were some tense moments, particularly when Reform UK MPs were speaking. Labour backbencher Sarah Champion, who had long been outspoken on sexual exploitation, called the speech by Rupert Lowe ‘disgusting’ because of the language he had used.

There are now two debates underway about grooming gangs and how the government should investigate them further. The first is the one raging on social media, largely conducted by people who haven’t up to this point shown much interest in the issue but who are busily accusing others of not doing enough. The second is a more fruitful one between the politicians who actually have engaged with the inquiries that have happened over the years, and who are now trying to work out what should happen next.

There is much that is good in today’s NHS elective recovery announcement: changes to incentives for trusts so that they are rewarded for clearing their backlogs faster; a new partnership agreement with the private sector; a proper plan for returning to 92 per cent cent of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment by 2029; minimum standards for elective care; and so on. But until we know the government’s overarching plan for reforming the NHS, it’s difficult to make much sense of the piecemeal announcements we are getting before then. It is not just the failure to reform social care, though, that makes it more difficult to realise all the other planned reforms.

The threatened Commons drama of an MP using parliamentary privilege to name the alleged Chinese spy was dampened rather after the High Court lifted the anonymity order on Yang Tengbo. It meant the urgent question (UQ) in the Chamber this afternoon ended up being much more about the UK government’s attitude towards China generally – which made it a much more useful session than if everyone had been craning their necks to see which maverick MP was going to stand up and name ‘H6’. The urgent question came from Iain Duncan Smith, who got a scolding from the Speaker for telling the press he was tabling it. Mind you, Lindsay Hoyle also made clear his displeasure with ministers for not giving a statement on the matter, so no one was in his good books today.

Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch had quite an angry clash at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. The Tory leader attacked on immigration, something Starmer had previously mocked her for avoiding. The questions and answers quickly descended into a bit of a grudge match about who actually cared about it. Badenoch’s first question was why immigration had not been named as a priority when Starmer ‘relaunched yet again’ last week. Starmer immediately crowed that ‘now she wants to talk about immigration’, accusing the Conservatives of a ‘one nation experiment in open borders’.

Is the fall of Bashar al-Assad really cause for celebration in Syria and across the world? UK government politicians have been trying to separate the relief of the dictator’s departure from any sense of celebration about what comes after. This afternoon in the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Assad was a ‘monster’, a ‘dictator’ and a ‘butcher’ and that his downfall was a humiliation for Russia and Iran who supported him.  Lammy also argued that the UK government had been right to refuse to re-engage with the Syrian regime under Assad.  This government chose not to re-engage. We said no, because Assad is a monster.

Justin Welby has given his valedictory speech in the House of Lords, his first public remarks since his resignation. It was quite a sad speech in which the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury didn’t appear to know quite what he wanted to say about his own departure. He started by joking that ‘if you want to make God laugh, make plans’, then added: ‘Well, on that basis, next year, I will be causing God more hilarity than anyone else for many years, because the plans for next year were very detailed and extensive.’ He told peers: The reality is that there comes a time if you are technically leading a particular institution or area of responsibility, where the shame of what has gone wrong, whether one is personally responsible or not, must require a head to roll.